Microsoft's official Windows blog just announced that Windows Vista's second major update, Service Pack 2 (SP2), has entered the release candidate (RC) stage, meaning it's in the home stretch and very close to completion. The RC version is already going out to subscribers to the MSDN and TechNet programs, but it will be for download to the public at large (that's us and you!) "in the very near future."

SP2 is not an update that will win points for pizazz; it's a very practical overhaul of security features and the like (although it does make some huge improvements to Windows' built in search features), but in theory if you install it you should see better perfromance and less risk of something terrible happening to your computer. The release candidate version isn't going to be quite as spic and span as the final release, of course, but it's worth going for anyway as long as you know what you're doing.

Oh yeah, and there's a Service Pack 2 update for Vista's straight-laced-and-heavy-lifting cousin Server 2008 too, if that's what you're into.

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